


Hatsumōde

by steelrunner



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fade to Black, Future Fic, Japanese Culture, M/M, Multi, New Years, Polyamory, Rating May Change, Ten Years Later, Well really more like six
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 12:54:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14285352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelrunner/pseuds/steelrunner
Summary: Shiro celebrates New Years Day somewhere very familiar.





	Hatsumōde

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shackjt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shackjt/gifts).



> Inspired by shki’s [endlessly gorgeous](https://hadobaloo.tumblr.com/post/169156349423/look-who-finally-remembered-her-ot3-happy-new) [art](https://hadobaloo.tumblr.com/post/169174706953/regarding-my-previous-post-i-thought-of-shiro) (second link is NSFW.) I've been dying to write something for those pics since January, so I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Everything I know about the Japanese New Years comes from tourism websites and YouTube, so I apologize for the inevitable mistakes.

Shiro has to help both of them dress. Pidge at least has the benefit of watching web tutorials, but Keith’s never been within ten feet of a kimono in his life, and it shows. All in all, it takes about an hour to get them out the door and on the road, walking to the shrine down the street. It’s an overcast, chilly day, just like the one before it, but Shiro swears he can still feel a fizzle of excitement in the air, like the champagne they had been drinking the night before.

“Are you gonna make it in those?” Shiro asks.

“After high heels, these are nothing,” Pidge says, hiding her face in the gray fur lining of her kimono. Despite the geta clicking against the sidewalk, she’s walking without a wobble - unlike poor Keith, who’s still determinedly hanging onto Shiro’s sleeve.

“And you?”

“I’ll manage,” Keith says bravely. “Just - don’t go too fast.”

Shiro can’t help chuckling, and he carefully puts an arm around Keith’s waist to keep him upright. “Just remember, keep your toes back…”

Slowly, they make their way onwards. They’re not the only ones headed to the shrine, and the stream of passersby thickens until they reach the woody area surrounding the shrine and find a real crowd. Some enterprising local has set up a booth around the corner, with a barrel full of soft drinks and platters of doteni. Shiro looks to the other two. “You guys hungry?”

Keith shrugs, and Pidge shakes her head. Other booths pop up the closer they get to the temple, selling fortunes, games, and other treats, and now it looks like the whole neighborhood is here, kids running around all bundled up while the adults walk about in both street and traditional clothing. Beyond them all is the massive wooden arch of the shrine gate. Pidge lays her hand on Shiro’s left arm, and once they bow they walk through it just like that, all joined together.

The next step, the wash basin, is right beyond the gate itself. Once Shiro finishes, he watches as Keith and Pidge pour the water over their hands and rinse their mouths. In the right order, too; Keith had taken it so seriously last night, checking and re-checking with Shiro to make sure he had the ritual down.

The last time Shiro had visited a shrine for the New Years, he had been fifteen; before his family had emigrated to America, before he had applied to the Garrison, before Kerberos and Voltron and the whole long, terrifying stretch of the war. But somehow, this feels just as natural as it had ten years ago - as if any minute his grandfather will come up besides him and guide him through the courtyard to pick up a new charm for the year. His grandfather had loved walking Shiro through all the steps of the ritual when he was young, and he would have loved being able to walk Pidge and Keith through it all over again. Shiro would have liked that, to come here with both his first and second families.

“Shiro?”

Pidge is standing next to him, looking up a little worriedly. Keith isn’t far behind. Shiro takes her hand and squeezes it. “Just thinking.”

She nods. Keith doesn’t say anything, but when he comes up alongside him he takes Shiro’s free hand in his own. Shiro can feel the pressure of his grip through the artificial nerves, and he’d be lying if he said he was embarrassed by the way some passing grandmothers titter at their cozy arrangement.

There’s a long line of people through the shrine courtyard, waiting to go up the stairs of the offertory hall, and an equally dense line of of people off to the side picking up omikuji and and omamori. The three of them get in at the end of the queue, patiently shuffling forward. “What are you two praying for?” Shiro asks.

“Good luck’s traditional, right?” Pidge says. “So that, and for the university to accept my application.”

“Which one of them?” Keith asks.

“All of them, I guess.” Pidge hesitates. “Except the Garrison’s. I don’t really care if they turn me down.”

Keith crosses his arms, a look of satisfaction growing on his face.“I’d love to be a fly on the wall when they get to your application.”

Pidge grins wickedly. Even Shiro can’t help laughing; he’s glad Iverson isn’t part of the admissions board, or they’d probably be finding out how culpable Pidge would be in causing his death-by-apoplexy.

“And what about you?” Pidge asks Keith. “Got anything on your list?”

“Hoping I get to see Mom soon,” Keith said. “She’s supposed to rotate out of her post in a couple months, but Kolivan said that part of the empire can be hazardous.”

Pidge made a sympathetic noise, and Shiro nudged his shoulder against Keith’s. “Your mom does have a talent for being impressively badass,” he says. “Krolia won’t let anything get in her way.”

That does get Keith to grin, so Shiro counts it as a victory. They spend another few minutes rambling on about anything that crosses their minds - the most recent Ajuria-McClain family reunion, Hunk and Matt’s waiting patents, Kolivan’s endless sufferings at the hands of bureaucracy - before they finally come to the front of the line and climb the stairs into the hall, dropping their five-yen pieces into the offering box before they approach the altar. The bell and rope overhead sway as Shiro grabs it, ringing once. He bows twice, claps twice, and then bows again. Keith and Pidge mimic him, and then they all stand in silence before the altar, heads bent.

Shiro doesn’t quite know what to do.

When he’d been younger, there’d always been something he’d wanted desperately. First to do well in school, and then to achieve his dream of getting into the Galaxy Garrison. His future had depended entirely on what he could achieve. And now…the only reason he’s in Japan is because he wanted to visit, and because Keith and Pidge decided to come along. In a week, he’ll get to visit his parents at their home in California. In three weeks, he’ll be watching the Castle of Lions touch down in Arizona, before it takes the three of them back to the stars with the rest of their friends. And tonight, he’s going to to go home and sleep beside the man and woman he loves more than anyone else in the world.

Shiro closes his eyes, and prays for nothing at all.

===

By the time they get back, around mid-afternoon, the sun’s broken from the clouds and erased the chill from the air, making Shiro’s previously-comfortable haori stifling. All three of them let out involuntary sighs of relief when they step into the cooler house, and Keith and Pidge go ahead to their bedroom while Shiro stops in the kitchen for a drink of water.

“Let me help you get those off,” Shiro calls after them once he’s polished off a glass and put it away in the dishwasher. He follows their path down the hall, pushing the bedroom door open. “Because if you need as much help as you did putting them on - ”

Pidge and Keith are both on the floor, kneeling by the futon. Evidentially they aren’t having any problems with their kimonos, judging by the fact that both of them are naked to the waist, clothes in loose heaps of fabric around their thighs. And apparently Pidge had chosen to be more traditional by forgoing a bra this morning. And Keith seems to be very - eager, with how Shiro can see his cock standing up against his stomach -

“Well?” Keith interrupts, with a snicker in his voice. “Are you gonna come help us or not?”

“Yeah,” Pidge says. “We need all the help we can get.”

Shiro doesn’t think it’s presumptuous to say his new year is off to a good start.

**Author's Note:**

> The second chapter is for the (forthcoming) porn.


End file.
